she was beginning
to think she had never known till that day.

In spite of this triumphant conclusion to her enterprise, Peggy returned
to the cottage heavy of heart. There is always a danger that the
sensitive and sympathetic will find the revelation of the misery in the
world overwhelming, bringing the temptation to shut one's eyes to
suffering, or else in its contemplation, to lose the joy out of life.
And as it only takes an added drop to cause a full cup to brim over,
Peggy's dejection reached the overflowing point, through no other agency
than the yellow hen.

The girls all noticed that Peggy was silent, as well as uncommunicative.
She fenced skilfully to evade direct answers to their questions, but she
did not seem inclined to introduce new topics of conversation. And when
Amy called her from the kitchen, where she and Ruth were getting supper,
Peggy sat staring abstractedly ahead of her till the call was repeated.

Priscilla glanced up from her magazine. "Say, Peggy, the girls are
calling you. Probably they are having trouble with the muffins."

"Oh, I didn't hear," Peggy sprang to her feet, and went hastily through
the house to the kitchen. But it was not domestic difficulties which
accounted for Amy's summons. She stood at the window, flattening her
nose against the screen.

"Peggy, I wish you'd tell me what this old vixen is about. Is she trying
to punish one of the chickens, or is it only a game?"

For ten days past the yellow hen had been freed from the restraints of
the coop, and by day had led her brood in adventurous quest of
grasshoppers, and at sunset had conducted them to the waiting nest in
the rear of the woodshed. But at the present moment, a peculiar scene
was being enacted. At the open door of the woodshed, a sleepy brood
huddled close, awaiting the return of their mother, who with an air of
determination was pursuing a squawking chick, running as if for his
life.

Around the cherry-tree they circled, once, twice, thrice. Then the
pursuer overtook her foster-child, and pecked him savagely. It was not a
game.

The yellow hen strutted off in the direction of her peeping brood,
clucking complacently, as if she congratulated herself on solving some
problem satisfactorily. The poor little outcast followed with a piteous
pipe, which caused the Spartan mother to turn and repeat her admonition.

For a moment Peggy was at a loss for an explanation. Then she
understood. "I know," she cried. "He'